Union Corners developer, McGrath Associates, submitted
its Urban Design Commission (UDC) application today.
UDC is scheduled to consider the Union Corners
proposal on Wednesday, September 20. Typically,
development projects go to UDC for approval first,
then to Plan Commission, then City Council.

There was also a kick-off meeting today to go over
plans for road and sewer construction this fall -
primarily a new road that would go from the planned
roundabout at Sixth Street - Winnebago up to
Milwaukee Street (meeting Milwaukee Street at a point
near where the back of Kohl's used to be).

As of today, the contractor, Capitol Underground,
Inc., 2413 Parmenter, Middleton, says it plans to
start work next Tuesday, September 5. It
will begin with sanitary sewer work near the
intersection of Fifth Street and Winnebago.

Capitol Underground says it plans to be doing sanitary
sewer work the Weeks of September 4-8 and September
11-15, water main work the week of September
18-22, storm sewer work the week of September
25-29, stone base for the new road the weeks of
October 9-13 and October 23-27, and paving the
week of October 30-November 3.

On
November 15th, the demolition of the former
battery assembly building at the closed Rayovac factory
began. The removal and reuse of this brick structure
signifies the separation between the demolition of the
oldest part of the site buildings and the promise of the
new development about to occur.

Since
October Champion Environmental has been working to
efficiently raze over 20 buildings that formed the
manufacturing complex. Steps from ranging from garnering
permits to protecting storm water pipes and separating
building components for recycling have been planned to
allow for the highest level reuse of materials and lowest
energy input.

Now,
all buildings at the back of the property are taken down
and within a week, the final portions of the walls and
roofs to be demolished will be gone.

You
may already know that the three-story front building will
remain and be renovated, but it may be a surprise that the
clean building components of cement and asphalt will be
returned to productive use at the site, while steel will
be recycled into new steel and the brick will be recovered
to be used in buildings onsite and new ones elsewhere.

The
anticipated schedule for demolition shows that the
buildings, including floors and most footings, will be
gone by Thanksgiving when the Champion activities will
focus on grading the site to control rain runoff along
with baling steel and making the final concrete aggregate
with the crusher.

By
November 30th, a new contractor (Onyx Special
Services) will arrive at the site to begin environmental
remediation work.

From
1917 to the mid 1930's there were flashlight style
batteries placed in back of the factory and graded to fill
in swampy land on the factory site. Over the years
Rayovac, along with the Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources, studied the effect of these land filled
materials on the environment. When the opportunity to
redevelop the property was created, all parties agreed
that the land filled battery related materials should be
removed to provide a clean and clear piece of property for
the new development.

The
removal of this waste is scheduled to take place in
roughly 20 working days. No Saturday work is planned at
this time, so including holidays the excavation work
should be completed in the week between Christmas and New
Year's day. Sampling will be done as the excavation
proceeds to assure that the residential clean up standards
are being met. Site control will assure that excavated
materials are not tracked onto city streets.

The
final housekeeping and grading will take one-two more
weeks, roughly until January 15 to complete, resulting in
a property primed for redevelopment.

The
finishing work will include storm water drainage
contouring and cover soil for ground cover growth in the
spring of 2005.

The
storm water (and spring melt water) objective for the
clean site is to prevent water from running on to the site
and prevent it from running off the site to others
property.

After
the environmental work is completed, all records will be
reviewed by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
to determine if all their standards and remedial
conditions have been achieved. When this step is completed
in the summer of 2005, the cleaned property will be
granted a Certificate of Completion signifying to McGrath
Associates that the history as a manufacturing site has
been properly cleaned and managed to provide an
appropriate residential and commercial building site.